Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Wow. Talking to teens works in strange ways.

My mom always said I would be paid back for all I did as a teenager to make her hair go white.  I blame the white hair on my brother.  He was much worse than I ever was. (giggle)  I know today that the sweet teenager I have in my home was Gods way of giving me the calm before the storm.  Still he is quite funny and quick witted. 

My funny boy came home from a weekend that included 3 sleepovers. One at his dads, one at one of his BFF's, and the other was a 13th birthday party for one of his longest known BFF's.  He came home with stories:

Me:  How was your weekend?

Z:  Good. 

Me:  How was the party?

Z:  Good.  (With a priceless expression, a mix between disgust and shock and amusement) Mom, those kids have potty mouths on them.

Me: Really?  Your sweet little friend is a curse monster?

Z:  No not him it was two of the other kids.  They were obnoxious.  I started falling asleep and one of them said "Lets color on his face" so as he put his hand towards my face I grabbed him and put him on his back. Unfortunately that woke the whole house with his shriek of surprise and pain.

Me:  Really?  Did you have to make him shriek?

Z:  I didn't expect that he would sound like a little girl. 

Me:  Nice.  I heard they were drawing in the sand, maybe some not so nice words.....

Z:  Yeah it was that one kid.  Mom he has a worse potty mouth than the guys at Uncles shop.

Me:  Really?  That takes some talent.

Z:  I know!  It was every other word and then sometimes every word that came out of his mouth was a cuss word.  I almost didn't understand him for the lack of actual content between curse words. Then he kept flipping me off and being completely annoying.

Me:  So what did you do?

Z:  Well, when the kid flipped me off again I told him I was flattered by his offer but I was straight.(Total nonchalance on his face like yeah stupid stop messing with me, you have cuss words, I have their meanings, my mom made me read about them every single time I learned a new word.)

I don't know about you but that was not the response I expected to receive from my 13 year old. I lost it.  I don't care that was funny.

Me: How did that go over?

Z:  They were in stunned silence for a few minutes then they stopped flipping me off.

Priceless. I guess all my talking to him about language usage and making sure he understood what he would be saying has paid off in more than one way.  Not to mention half the population of his friends are terrified to say those words in front of me due to my threat of making them lap book the word,  learn its meaning, and history.  FYI the F word is usually considered to be first attested to around 1475, but it may be considerably older.

Bizarre Behavior

“No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.” 
― Bill Cosby

I found this quote today and I would have to agree with Mr. Cosby parenting has made me do some strange things.

Today I have already told Zach to stop playing in the rusty water from the water heater blow out. (I'm pretty sure those new neighbors who haven't met us yet but keep hearing all the insanity over here will never introduce themselves and they tend to run inside their home every time our garage door opens.) I also got him to say that I was annoying him to no end.  My response? "YES!  I have done my job for the day!"

Z: So can you stop now?

Me: Bwa ha ha! No!

Z:  Sigh.

In other events of the day. I just used a paper holder to tell Corbin to finish cleaning the car out after he destroyed it having a monumental temper tantrum for my mother. My mom, instead of making him suffer till he got home as Zach suggested she do, she gave him another happy meal and chocolate. That is the gift of being a grandparent. As his mother I know at 9 he needs a consequence, I make him clean the car out..... My children should worry about becoming parents especially Corbin.  I'm going to spoil any kids they have, you might want to feel a little sorry for his wife.

Yeah...Life is strange and no we aren't normal.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Meet our Porcupine, Spike

Tomorrow is my sweet baby's birthday.  It's a big one he's going from one hand to two.  What did he want for his birthday?  Rocket Shoes and spiky hair.  Rocket Shoes don't exist for small children (though I'm sure Adam will find a way to make them.). We went to the hair dresser.

When he told her what he wanted she warned him that it was going to be very short.  He still wanted it done.  I watched as she sheared my small child down to a little less than an inch of hair.  The expression of excitement on his face was worth every penny I had to pay for the hair cut and gel that he will now need to put in his hair every day.

When he went out to the car the other boys were first shocked and then:

C: Wow!  Hi Spike.

Z: Mom, can we call him that now?

A: No!  My name is Adam!

C: He's a porcupine, named Spike!

A: Stop it!

Z: He kinda is.

A: My hair is now a weapon!  I warn you stop or I will spike you!

Everything becomes a weapon for boys.  Absolutely EVERYTHING!

Introducing.........our Porcupine......
Spike!

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy New Year! Some of us here are stuck on Christmas.

Took my oldest to his first real New Years Eve Party.  You know one that doesn't end at 9pm and the kids attract the attention of the police at 8:30 at night due to nosy neighbors.  In neighbors defense there were like 30 kids running around. However, if she really wanted to make a case that they were burglars well the running and screaming should not only be an indication they would be very bad burglars but they would probably deter others who would be up to no good.

Standing there watching all the goings on and talking with friends I catch out of the corner of my eye my Corbin walking with one of the dads.

Corbin was looking at him, hes kind of a big guy.  All of a sudden he reaches his hand below the mans belly and pats his hand up and says "Your belly is like Jelly." I think Corbin thought he was Santa. I grabbed the small child and gave him a lecture I hope is not soon to be forgotten.That entailed the phrase "you may not touch peoples belly's or any other body parts".  (While trying not to cough from holding in my laughter.)

From all indications the sweet gentleman either didn't hear the monster or he heard and decided that I handled it and he didn't want to get involved.  Bless him. And bless my friends for laughing with me or at me. We left not too long after that.

Happy New Year.  Here's to knowing there will be many more blogging moments in 2014.